VBS-im­pli­cated CFO changes coun­cils

Makhubela makes move to Tza­neen

Greater Tza­neen lo­cal mu­nic­i­pal­ity in Lim­popo has been ac­cused of fail­ing to take ac­tion against its chief fi­nan­cial of­fi­cer, who was im­pli­cated in the VBS Mu­tual Bank scan­dal dur­ing stint at Makhado Lo­cal Mu­nic­i­pal­ity.

The mu­nic­i­pal­ity’s CFO, Palesa Makhubela, was im­pli­cated af­ter ad­vo­cate Terry Mo­tau found What­sApp con­ver­sa­tions be­tween her and politi­cian Ka­belo Mat­sepe in which Makhubela al­legedly de­manded R33,000 for her role in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the in­vest­ment.

She was Makhado mu­nic­i­pal­ity’s CFO at the time. The mu­nic­i­pal­ity in­vested R61m in the col­lapsed VBS. SA Mu­nic­i­pal Work­ers Union (Samwu) pro­vin­cial sec­re­tary Pa­trick Aphane said the mu­nic­i­pal­ity was fail­ing its peo­ple by keep­ing some­one who had un­duly ben­e­fited from the pub­lic funds. “The pro­vin­cial gov­ern­ment’s foren­sic re­port was very clear that all mu­nic­i­pal man­agers and CFOs who had in­vested the money [in VBS] should step down. Now that they are aware Makhubela is im­pli­cated, they shouldn’t hide be­hind le­gal opin­ions, they must be ra­tio­nal and ter­mi­nate h er con­trac t,” Aphane said. Makhubela was not avail­able for com­ment at the time of go­ing to print yes­ter­day. Mo­tau in court pa­pers against ANC pro­vin­cial trea­surer in Lim­popo Danny Msiza re­vealed that in Fe­bru­ary 2017 Makhubela said the fol­low­ing to Mat­sepe: “So I get R33k out of all my ef­forts, please you in Giyani you must make it up to me.” Mat­sepe re­sponded by say­ing, “Cause it’s a smaller pie and will get some­thing when the pe­riod is six months.” Tza­neen mu­nic­i­pal­ity spokesper­son Neville Nd­lala said at the time of Makhubela’s ap­point­ment as CFO, the mu­nic­i­pal­ity was not aware of the al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against her. “These al­le­ga­tions came to light a few months af­ter her ap­point­ment. We have ac­tu­ally con­ducted all the nec­es­sary back­ground checks [vet­ting] and noth­ing ad­verse came out of these checks,” Nd­lala said. “We must con­cede that these are se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions and al­leged mis­con­duct of our CFO is in re­la­tion to her pre­vi­ous em­ploy­ment at Makhado lo­cal mu­nic­i­pal­ity.”

Nd­lala said they had no le­gal ba­sis to take any dis­ci­plinary ac­tion against Makhubela as the al­leged mis­con­duct was with her pre­vi­ous em­ployer. Premier Stan­ley Matha­batha’s spokesper­son, Kenny Mathivha, said ac­tion will be taken against those im­pli­cated af­ter po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions had been com­pleted.

‘ ‘ I get R33k out of my ef­forts, you in Giyani must make it up to me

/ ZOUTPANSBERGER

Palesa Makhubela re­port­edly asked for more of a kick­back for al­legedly il­le­gally in­vest­ing pub­lic funds in VBS Mu­tual Bank.